East Asian Noir: Crime and the City

Learning Outcomes

Subject Specific Intellectual and Research Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Successfully analyse specific filmic texts, situating this analysis in aesthetic and cultural context.
• Apply different theoretical models and concepts to a variety of filmic texts.
• Engage critically with a range of theoretical material.
• Understand and use a range of specialised terms and concepts.

Transferable and Generic Skills

Having successfully completed this module you will be able to:

• Coherently and persuasively argue your ideas, verbally and in written form.
• Independently identify and locate appropriate critical resources.
• Write effectively, accurately and critically in an appropriate academic style.
• Organise your time successfully, respecting and meeting deadlines.

Knowledge and Understanding

Having successfully completed this module, you will be able to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of:

• Contemporary Hong Kong, Mainland Chinese and South Korean cinema since 1997 and broad awareness of previous movements/developments in those cinemas.
• Debates surrounding the relationship between auteur and genre.
• Key concepts of transnational and Asian cinema.
• The diversity and recurrence of themes and styles in the work of specific directors.

The module will explore issues in East Asian crime cinema, by examining the work of Johnnie To and other films akers from Mainland China and South Korea.

Johnnie To Kei-Fung has directed films for Hong Kong television and cinema since the 1970s, but has become internationally more acknowledged only since the late 1980s. Since 2000, he has become one of Hong Kong's most prominent and prolific filmmakers, and his films are increasingly showcased at international festivals.

Possessing a distinctive visual flair, To’s films (mostly produced by his independent company Milkyway Image) represent a contemporary Hong Kong cinema that defies distinctions between popular genre and art cinema, mobilising both domestic cultural traditions and international influences and references (especially with classical Hollywood, but also with European film). As such, To’s oeuvre is ideally suited to discuss questions of authorship, genre, and the intersection between the local and the global in contemporary world

cinema. The module will focus on close readings of a selected group of To’s films including, for example, PTU (2003), Mad Detective (2007), Sparrow (2007), and Drug War (2012). This selection will enable you to perceive and analyse the continuities within To’s work, but also get a sense of the cultural distinctiveness of contemporary Hong Kong cinema. The module will also provide comparisons with films from Mainland China and South Korea.

Teaching and learning methods

Teaching methods include:

• Plenary sessions to deal with general themes and concepts, ideas.
• Seminars involving student led presentations, whole class and small group discussions. These will centre more on close textual readings.
• Weekly screenings of selected films.
• One to one consultation with tutor.

Resources & Reading list

Textbooks

David Bordwell (2000). Planet Hong Kong: Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment. Harvard UP.

Ackbar Abbas (1997). Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance. University of Minnesota Press.

Meaghan Morris, Siu Leung Li, Stephen Ching-Kiu Chan, eds (2006). Hong Kong Connections: Transnational Imagination in Action Cinema. Duke UP.

Stephen Teo (2007). Director in Action: Johnnie To and the Hong Kong Action Film. HK University Press.

Leon Hunt, Leung Wing-Fai, eds (2008). East Asian Cinemas: Exploring Transnational Connections on Film. I.B.Tauris.

Anne Tereska Ciecko, ed (2006). Contemporary Asian Cinema: Popular Culture in a Global Frame. Berg.

Michael Ingham (2009). Johnnie To Kei-Fung’s PTU. Hong Kong UP.

Assessment strategy

Assessments designed to provide informal, on-going feedback:

• You will be invited to discuss preparation for formal assessment with the tutor.
• You will be invited to discuss your work in progress, including seminar presentations and contributions, with the tutor.
• Guidance on all forms of assessment will be supplied in initial module documentation and in class.
• Written feedback on assignment cover sheets.
• Discussion of completed assignments in tutorials.Note on assessments for MA level work
• Topics chosen for the assignments should allow a great degree of focus and detail, whether of analysis, examination of and commentary on facts, critical insight, independent argument, or other factors.
• Conversely, assignments should demonstrate a broad knowledge and understanding of context, a confident use of analytical and critical tools, and a mature handling of argument and materials.
• Optimal standards of presentation are required, in terms of spelling, punctuation, and grammar; sophistication of vocabulary; provision of footnotes; inclusion of full bibliographical and related details; physical appearance of work, etc.

In short, MA level students should aspire at all times to the highest possible levels of work.

Summative

This is how we’ll formally assess what you have learned in this module.

Referral

This is how we’ll assess you if you don’t meet the criteria to pass this module.

Repeat

An internal repeat is where you take all of your modules again, including any you passed. An external repeat is where you only re-take the modules you failed.

Repeat Information

Repeat type: Internal & External